A Deepness in the Sky

prologue

The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light-years and eight centuries. It had always been a secret search, unacknowledged even among some of the participants. In the early years, it had simply been encrypted queries hidden in radio broadcasts. Decades and centuries passed. There were clues, interviews with The Man’s fellow travelers, pointers in a half dozen contradictory directions: The Man was alone now and heading still farther away; The Man had died before the search ever began; The Man had a war fleet and was coming back upon them.

With time, there was some consistency to the most credible stories. The evidence was solid enough that certain ships changed schedules and burned decades of time to look for more clues. Fortunes were lost because of the detours and delays, but the losses were to a few of the largest trading Families, and went unacknowledged. They were rich enough, and this search was important enough, that it scarcely mattered. For the search had narrowed: The Man was traveling alone, a vague blur of multiple identities, a chain of one-shot jobs on minor trading vessels, but always moving back and back into this end of Human Space. The hunt narrowed from a hundred light-years, to fifty, to twenty—and a half dozen star systems.

And finally, the manhunt came down to a single world at the coreward end of Human Space. Now Sammy could justify a fleet specially for the end of the hunt. The crew and even most of the owners would not know the mission’s true purpose, but he had a good chance of finally ending the search.

Sammy himself went groundside on Triland. For once, it made sense for a Fleet Captain to do the detail work: Sammy was the only one in the fleet who had actually met The Man in person. And given the present popularity of his fleet here, he could cut through whatever bureaucratic nonsense might come up. Those were good reasons … but Sammy would be down here in any case. I have waited so long, and in a little while we’ll have him.

Why should I help you find anyone! I’m not your mother! The little man had backed into his inner office space. Behind him, a door was cracked five centimeters wide. Sammy caught a glimpse of a child peeking out fearfully at them. The little man shut the door firmly. He glared at the Forestry constables who had preceded Sammy into the building. I’ll tell you one more time: My place of business is the net. If you didn’t find what you want there, then it’s not available from me.

’Scuse me. Sammy tapped the nearest constable on the shoulder. ’Scuse me. He slipped through the ranks of his protectors.

The proprietor could see that someone tall was coming through. He reached toward his desk. Lordy. If he trashed the databases he had distributed across the net, they’d get nothing out of him.

But the fellow’s gesture froze. He stared in shock at Sammy’s face. Admiral?

Um, ‘Fleet Captain,’ if you please.

Yes, yes! We’ve been watching you on the news every day now. Please! Sit down. You’re the source of the inquiry?

The change in manner was like a flower opening to the sunlight. Apparently the Qeng Ho was just as popular with the city folk as it was with the Forestry Department. In a matter of seconds, the proprietor—the private investigator, as he called himself—had pulled up records and started search programs. … Hmm. You don’t have a name, or a good physical description, just a probable arrival date. Okay, now Forestry claims your fellow must have become someone named ‘Bidwel Ducanh.’ His gaze slid sideways to the silent constables, and he smiled. They’re very good at reaching nonsense conclusions from insufficient information. In this case… He did something with his search programs. Bidwel Ducanh. Yeah, now that I search for it, I remember hearing about that fellow. Sixty or a hundred years ago he made some kind of a name for himself. A figure that had come from nowhere, with a moderate amount of money and an uncanny flair for self-advertisement. In a period of thirty years, he had gathered the support of several major corporations and even the favor of the Forestry Department. Ducanh claimed to be a city person, but he was no freedom fighter. He wanted to spend money on some crazy, long-term scheme. What was it? He wanted to… The private investigator looked up from his reading to stare a moment at Sammy. He wanted to finance an expedition to the OnOff star!

Sammy just nodded.

Damn! If he had been successful, Triland would have an expedition partway there right now. The investigator was silent for a moment, seeming to contemplate the lost opportunity. He looked back at his records. And you know, he almost succeeded. A world like ours would have to bankrupt itself to go interstellar. But sixty years ago, a single Qeng Ho starship visited Triland. Course, they didn’t want to break their schedule, but some of Ducanh’s supporters were hoping they’d help out. Ducanh wouldn’t have anything to do with the idea, wouldn’t even talk to the Qeng Ho. After that, Bidwel Ducanh pretty much lost his credibility.… He faded from sight.

All this was in Triland’s Forestry Department records. Sammy said, Yes. We’re interested in where this individual is now. There had been no interstellar vessel in Triland’s solar system for sixty years. He is here!

Ah, so you figure he may have some extra information, something that would be useful even after what’s happened the last three years?

Sammy resisted an impulse to violence. A little more patience now, what more could it cost after the centuries of waiting? Yes, he said, benignly judicious, it would be good to cover all the angles, don’t you think?

Right. You’ve come to the right place. I know city things that the Forestry people never bother to track. I really want to help. He was watching some kind of scanning analysis, so this was not completely wasted time. These alien radio messages are going to change our world, and I want my children to—

The investigator frowned. Huh! You just missed this Bidwel character, Fleet Captain. See, he’s been dead for ten years.

Sammy didn’t say anything, but his mild manner must have slipped; the little man flinched when he looked up at him. I-I’m sorry, sir. Perhaps he left some effects, a will.

It can’t be. Not when I’m so close. But it was a possibility that Sammy had always known. It was the commonplace in a universe of tiny lifetimes and interstellar distances. I suppose we are interested in any data the man left behind. The words came out dully. At least we have closure—that would be the concluding line from some smarmy intelligence analyst.

The investigator tapped and muttered at his devices. The Forestry Department had reluctantly identified him as one of the best of the city class, so well distributed that they could not simply confiscate his equipment to take him over. He was genuinely trying to be helpful.… There may be a will, Fleet Captain, but it’s not on the Grandville net.

Some other city, then? The fact that the Forestry Department had partitioned the urban networks was a very bad sign for Triland’s future.

… Not exactly. See, Ducanh died at one of Saint Xupere’s Pauper Cemeteria, the one in Lowcinder. It looks like the monks have held on to his effects. I’m sure they would give them up in return for a decent-sized donation. His eyes returned to the constables and his expression hardened. Maybe he recognized the oldest one, the Commissioner of Urban Security. No doubt they could shake down the monks with no need for any contribution.

Sammy rose and thanked the private investigator; his words sounded wooden even to himself. As he walked back toward the door and his escort, the investigator came quickly around his desk and followed him. Sammy realized with abrupt embarrassment that the fellow hadn’t been paid. He turned back, feeling a sudden liking for the guy. He admired someone who would demand his pay in the face of unfriendly cops. Here, Sammy started to say, this is what I can—

But the fellow held up his hands. No, not necessary. But there is a favor I would like from you. See, I have a big family, the brightest kids you’ve ever seen. This joint expedition isn’t going to leave Triland for another five or ten years, right? Can you make sure that my kids, even one of them—?

Sammy cocked his head. Favors connected with mission success came very dear. I’m sorry, sir, he said as gently as he could. Your children will have to compete with everyone else. Have them study hard in college. Have them target the specialties that are announced. That will give them the best chance.

Yes, Fleet Captain! That is exactly the favor that I am asking. Would you see to it— He swallowed and looked fiercely at Sammy, ignoring the others. —would you see to it that they are allowed to undertake college studies?

Certainly. A little grease on academic entrance requirements didn’t bother Sammy at all. Then he realized what the other was really saying. Sir, I’ll make sure of it.

Thank you. Thank you! He touched his business card into Sammy’s hand. There’s my name and stats. I’ll keep it up-to-date. Please remember.

Yes, uh, Mr. Bonsol, I’ll remember. It was a classic Qeng Ho deal.

The city dropped away beneath the Forestry Department flyer. Grandville had only about half a million inhabitants, but they were crammed into a snarled slum, the air above them shimmering with summer heat. The First Settlers’ forest lands spread away for thousands of kilometers around it, virgin terraform wilderness.

They boosted high into clean indigo air, arcing southward. Sammy ignored the Triland Urban Security boss sitting right beside him; just now he had neither the need nor the desire to be diplomatic. He punched a connection to his Deputy Fleet Captain. Kira Lisolet’s autoreport streamed across his vision. Sum Dotran had agreed to the schedule change: all the fleet would be going to the OnOff star.

Sammy! Kira’s voice cut across the automatic report. How did it go? Kira Lisolet was the only other person in the fleet who knew the true purpose of this mission, the manhunt.

I— We lost him, Kira. But Sammy couldn’t say the words. See for yourself, Kira. The last two thousand seconds of my pov. I’m headed back to Lowcinder now … one last loose end to tie down.

There was a pause. Lisolet was fast with an indexed scan. After a moment he heard her curse to herself. Okay … but do tie that last loose end, Sammy. There were times before when we were sure we’d lost him.

Never like this, Kira.

I said, you make absolutely sure. There was steel in the woman’s voice. Her people owned a big hunk of the fleet. She owned one ship herself. In fact, she was the only operational owner on the mission. Most times, that was not a problem. Kira Pen Lisolet was a reasonable person on almost all issues. This was one of the exceptions.

I’ll make sure, Kira. You know that. Sammy was suddenly conscious of the Triland Security boss at his elbow—and he remembered what he had accidentally discovered a few moments earlier. How are things topside?

Her response was light, a kind of apology. Great. I got the shipyard waivers. The deals with the industrial moons and the asteroid mines look solid. We’re continuing with detailed planning. I still think we can be equipped and specialist-crewed in three hundred Msec. You know how much the Trilanders want a cut of this mission. He heard the smile in her voice. Their link was encrypted, but she knew that his end was emphatically not secure. Triland was a customer and soon to be a mission partner, but they should know just where they stood.

"Very good. Add something to the list, if it’s not already there: ‘Per our desire for the best specialist crew possible, we require that the Forestry Department’s university programs be open to all those who pass our tests, not just the heirs of First Settlers.’"

Of course… A second passed, just enough time for a double take. Lord, how could we miss something like that? We missed it because some fools are very hard to underestimate.

A thousand seconds later, Lowcinder was rising toward them. This was almost thirty degrees south latitude. The frozen desolation that spread around it looked like the pre-Arrival pictures of equatorial Triland, five hundred years ago, before the First Settlers began tweaking the greenhouse gases and building the exquisite structure that is a terraform ecology.

Lowcinder itself was near the center of an extravagant black stain, the product of centuries of nucleonically clean rocket fuels. This was Triland’s largest groundside spaceport, yet the city’s recent growth was as grim and slumlike as all the others on the planet.

Their flyer switched to fans and trundled across the city, slowly descending. The sun was very low, and the streets were mostly in twilight. But every kilometer the streets seemed narrower. Custom composites gave way to cubes that might have once been cargo containers. Sammy watched grimly. The First Settlers had worked for centuries to create a beautiful world; now it was exploding out from under them. It was a common problem in terraformed worlds. There were at least five reasonably painless methods of accommodating the terraform’s final success. But if the First Settlers and their Forestry Department were not willing to adopt any of them … well, there might not be a civilization here to welcome his fleet’s return. Sometime soon, he must have a heart-to-heart chat with members of the ruling class.

His thoughts were brought back to the present as the flyer dumped down between blocky tenements. Sammy and his Forestry goons walked through half-frozen slush. Piles of clothing—donations?—lay jumbled in boxes on the steps of the building they approached. The goons detoured around them. Then they were up the steps and indoors.

The cemeterium’s manager called himself Brother Song, and he looked old unto death. Bidwel Ducanh? His gaze slid nervously away from Sammy. Brother Song did not recognize Sammy’s face, but he knew the Forestry Department. Bidwel Ducanh died ten years ago.

He was lying. He was lying.

Sammy took a deep breath and looked around the dingy room. Suddenly he felt as dangerous as some fleet scuttlebutt made him out to be. God forgive me, but I will do anything to get the truth from this man. He looked back at Brother Song and attempted a friendly smile. It must not have come out quite right; the old man stepped back a pace. A cemeterium is a place for people to die, is that right, Brother Song?

It is a place for all to live to the natural fullness of their time. We use all the money that people bring, to help all the people who come. In the perverse Triland situation, Brother Song’s primitivism made a terrible kind of sense. He helped the sickest of the poorest as well as he could.

Sammy held up his hand. I will donate one hundred years of budget to each of your order’s cemeteria … if you take me to Bidwel Ducanh.

I— Brother Song took another step backward, and sat down heavily. Somehow he knew that Sammy could make good on his offer. Maybe … But then the old man looked up at Sammy and there was a desperate stubbornness in his stare. No. Bidwel Ducanh died ten years ago.

Sammy walked across the room and grasped the arms of the old man’s chair. He brought his face down close to the other’s. You know these people I’ve brought with me. Do you doubt that if I give the word, they will take your cemeterium apart, piece by piece? Do you doubt that if we don’t find what I seek here, we’ll do the same to every cemeterium of your order, all over this world?

It was clear that Brother Song did not doubt. He knew the Forestry Department. Yet for a moment Sammy was afraid that Song would stand up even to that. And I will then do what I must do. Abruptly, the old man seemed to crumple in on himself, weeping silently.

Sammy stood back from his chair. Some seconds passed. The old man stopped crying and struggled to his feet. He didn’t look at Sammy or gesture; he simply shuffled out of the room.

Sammy and his entourage followed. They walked single file down a long corridor. There was horror here. It wasn’t in the dim and broken lighting or the water-stained ceiling panels or the filthy floor. Along the corridor, people sat on sofas or wheeled chairs. They sat, and stared … at nothing. At first, Sammy thought they were wearing head-up displays, that their vision was far away, maybe in some consensual imagery. After all, a few of them were talking, a few of them were making constant, complicated gestures. Then he noticed that the signs on the walls were painted there. The plain, peeling wall material was simply all there was to see. And the withered people sitting in the hall had eyes that were naked and vacant.

Sammy walked close behind Brother Song. The monk was talking to himself, but the words made sense. He was talking about The Man: Bidwel Ducanh was not a kindly man. He was not someone you could like, even at the beginning … especially at the beginning. He said he had been rich, but he brought us nothing. The first thirty years, when I was young, he worked harder than any of us. There was no job too dirty, no job too hard. But he had ill to say of everyone. He mocked everyone. He would sit by a patient through the last night of life, and then afterward sneer. Brother Song was speaking in the past tense, but after a few seconds Sammy realized that he was not trying to convince Sammy of anything. Song was not even talking to himself. It was as if he were speaking a wake for someone he knew would be dead very soon. And then as the years passed, like all the rest of us, he could help less and less. He talked about his enemies, how they would kill him if they ever found him. He laughed when we promised to hide him. In the end, only his meanness survived—and that without speech.

Brother Song stopped before a large door. The sign above it was brave and floral: TO THE SUNROOM.

Ducanh will be the one watching the sunset. But, the monk did not open the door. He stood with his head bowed, not quite blocking the way.

Sammy started to walk around him, then stopped, and said, The payment I mentioned: It will be deposited to your order’s account. The old man didn’t look up at him. He spat on Sammy’s jacket and then walked back down the hall, pushing past the constables.

Sammy turned and pulled at the door’s mechanical latch.

Sir? It was the Commissioner of Urban Security. The cop-bureaucrat stepped close and spoke softly. Um. We didn’t want this escort job, sir. This should have been your own people.

Huh? I agree, Commissioner. So why didn’t you let me bring them?

It wasn’t my decision. I think they figured that constables would be more discreet. The cop looked away. Look, Fleet Captain. We know you Qeng Ho carry grudges a long time.

Sammy nodded, although that truth applied more to customer civilizations than to individuals.

The cop finally looked him in the eye. Okay. We’ve cooperated. We made sure that nothing about your search could leak back to your … target. But we won’t do this guy for you. We’ll look the other way; we won’t stop you. But I won’t do him.

Ah. Sammy tried to imagine just where in the moral pantheon this fellow would fit. Well, Commissioner, staying out of my way is all that is required. I can take care of this myself.

The cop gave a jerky nod. He stepped back, and didn’t follow when Sammy opened the door to the sunroom.

The air was chill and stale, an improvement over the rank humidity of the hallway. Sammy walked down a dark stairway. He was still indoors, but not by much. This had been an exterior entrance once, leading down to street level. Plastic sheeting walled it in now, creating some kind of sheltered patio.

What if he’s like the wretches in the hallway? They reminded him of people who lived beyond the capabilities of medical support. Or the victims of a mad experimentory. Their minds had died in pieces. That was a finish he had never seriously considered, but now …

Sammy reached the bottom of the stairs. Around the corner was the promise of daylight. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and stood quietly for a long moment.

Do it. Sammy walked forward, into a large room. It looked like part of the parking lot, but tented with semiopaque plastic sheets. There was no heating, and drafts thuttered past breaks in the plastic. A few heavily bundled forms were scattered in chairs across the open space. They sat facing in no particular direction; some were looking into the gray stone of the exterior wall.

All that barely registered on Sammy. At the far end of the room, a column of sunlight fell low and slanting through a break in the roof. A single person had contrived to sit in the middle of that light.

Sammy walked slowly across the room, his eyes never leaving the figure that sat in the red-and-gold light of sunset. The face had a racial similarity to the high Qeng Ho Families, but it was not the face that Sammy remembered. No matter. The Man would have changed his face long ago. Besides, Sammy had a DNA counter in his jacket, and a copy of The Man’s true DNA code.

He was bundled in blankets and wore a heavy knit cap. He didn’t move but he seemed to be watching something, watching the sunset. It’s him. The conviction came without rational thought, an emotional wave breaking over him. Maybe incomplete, but this is him.

Sammy took a loose chair and sat down facing the figure in the light. A hundred seconds passed. Two hundred. The last rays of sunset were fading. The Man’s stare was blank, but he reacted to the coolness on his face. His head moved, vaguely searching, and he seemed to notice his visitor. Sammy turned so his face was lit by the sunset sky. Something came into the other’s eyes, puzzlement, memories swimming up from the depths. Abruptly, The Man’s hands came out of his blankets and jerked clawlike at Sammy’s face.

You!

Yes, sir. Me. The search of eight centuries was over.

The Man shifted uncomfortably in his wheeled chair, rearranging his blankets. He was silent for some seconds, and when he finally spoke, his words were halting. I knew your … kind would still be looking for me. I financed this damn Xupere cult, but I always knew … it might not be enough. He shifted again on the chair. There was a glitter in his eyes that Sammy had never seen in the old days. Don’t tell me. Each Family pitched in a little. Maybe every Qeng Ho ship has one crewmember who keeps a lookout for me.

He had no concept of the search that had finally found him. We mean you no harm, sir.

The Man gave a rasp of a laugh, not arguing, but certainly disbelieving. It’s my bad luck that you would be the agent they assigned to Triland. You’re smart enough to find me. They should have done better by you, Sammy. You should be a Fleet Captain and more, not some assassin errand boy. He shifted again, reached down as if to scratch his butt. What was it? Hemorrhoids? Cancer? Lordy, I bet he’s sitting on a handgun. He’s been ready all these years, and now it’s tangled up in the blankets.

Sammy leaned forward earnestly. The Man was stringing him along. Fine. It might be the only way he would talk at all. So we were finally lucky, sir. Myself, I guessed you might come here, because of the OnOff star.

The surreptitious probing of blankets paused for a moment. A sneer flickered across the old man’s face. It’s only fifty light-years away, Sammy. The nearest astrophysical enigma to Human Space. And you ball-less Qeng Ho wonders have never visited it. Holy profit is all your kind ever cared about. He waved his right hand forgivingly, while his left dug deeper into the blankets. "But then, the whole human race is just as bad. Eight thousand years of telescope observations and two botched fly-throughs, that’s all the wonder rated.… I thought maybe this close, I could put together a manned mission. Maybe I would find something there, an edge. Then, when I came back—" The strange glitter was back in his eyes. He had dreamed his impossible dream so long, it had consumed him. And Sammy realized that The Man was not a fragment of himself. He was simply mad.

But debts owed to a madman are still real debts.

Sammy leaned a little closer. You could have done it. I understand that a starship passed through here when ‘Bidwel Ducanh’ was at the height of his influence.

That was Qeng Ho. Fuck the Qeng Ho! I have washed my hands of you. His left arm was no longer probing. Apparently, he had found his handgun.

Sammy reached out and lightly touched the blankets that hid The Man’s left arm. It wasn’t a forcible restraint, but an acknowledgment … and a request for a moment’s more time. Pham. There’s reason to go to OnOff now. Even by Qeng Ho standards.

Huh? Sammy couldn’t tell if it was the touch, or his words, or the name that had been unspoken for so long—but something briefly held the old man still and listening.

Three years ago, while we were still backing into here, the Trilanders picked up emissions from near the OnOff star. It was spark-gap radio, like a fallen civilization might invent if it had totally lost its technological history. We’ve run out our own antenna arrays, and done our own analysis. The emissions are like manual Morse code, except human hands and human reflexes would never have quite this rhythm.

The old man’s mouth opened and shut but for a moment no words came. Impossible, he finally said, very faintly.

Sammy felt himself smile. It’s strange to hear that word from you, sir.

More silence. The Man’s head bowed. Then: The jackpot. I missed it by just sixty years. And you, by hunting me down here … now you’ll get it all. His arm was still hidden, but he had slumped forward in his chair, defeated by his inner vision of defeat.

Sir, a few of us—more than a few—have searched for you. You made yourself very hard to find, and there are all the old reasons for keeping the search secret. But we never wished you harm. We wanted to find you to— To make amends? To beg forgiveness? Sammy couldn’t say the words, and they weren’t quite true. After all, The Man had been wrong. So speak to the present: We would be honored if you would come with us, to the OnOff star.

Never. I am not Qeng Ho.

Sammy always kept close track of his ships’ status. And just now … Well, it was worth a try: I didn’t come to Triland aboard a singleton, sir. I have a fleet.

The other’s chin came up a fraction. A fleet? The interest was an old reflex, not quite dead.

They’re in near moorage, but right now they should be visible from Lowcinder. Would you like to see?

The old man only shrugged, but both his hands were in the open now, resting in his lap.

Let me show you. There was a doorway hacked in the plastic just a few meters away. Sammy got up and moved slowly to push the wheeled chair. The old man made no objection.

Outside, it was cold, probably below freezing. Sunset colors hung above the rooftops ahead of him, but the only evidence of daytime warmth was the icy slush that splashed over his shoes. He pushed the chair along, heading across the parking lot toward a spot that would give them some view toward the west. The old man looked around vaguely. I wonder how long it’s been since he was outside.

You ever thought, Sammy, there could be other folks come to this tea party?

Sir? The two of them were alone in the parking lot.

There are human colony worlds closer to the OnOff star than we are.

That tea party. Yes, sir. We’re updating our eavesdropping on them. Three beautiful worlds in a triple star system, and back from barbarism in recent centuries. They call themselves ‘Emergents’ now. We’ve never visited them, sir. Our best guess is they’re some kind of tyranny, high-tech but very closed, very inward-looking.

The old man grunted. I don’t care how inward-looking the bastards are. This is something that could … wake the dead. Take guns and rockets and nukes, Sammy. Lots and lots of nukes.

Yes, sir.